


why hold onto all that (where can i put it down)

by bansheesquad (deathwailart)



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Class Differences, Cowboys & Cowgirls, Cunnilingus, F/F, Fingerfucking, Infidelity, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29944575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/bansheesquad
Summary: Shady Belle hasn't improved the tempers of Molly or Dutch and Sadie's had enough of listening to it at all hours so she invites Molly on a trip to Saint Denis to clear her head when she goes to sell pelts to a trapperOr: a widow accidentally seduces an outlaw's paramour on a trip to Saint Denis
Relationships: Sadie Adler/Molly O'Shea
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	why hold onto all that (where can i put it down)

Fact of the matter is, Sadie reckons her and Molly got more in common in some odd twisted up way (but that's just the way of it these days) than they do with the other women in the Van der Linde gang. Sadie doesn't go about asking ages but Susan's clearly older given she was with Dutch so long and had a decent hand in dragging both Arthur and John up and how she takes charge of _the girls_ as she terms them – Karen's the only one Sadie's never decided on but her and Molly she thinks might be somewhere close. Not so young as Abigail, Tilly or Mary-Beth, bit more living under their belts but all the same maybe neither of them belong either. Sadie's heard the stories from each one of them and well, where else is she going to go now? No going back and there's the O'Driscolls about if someone'd just _let her_ out there once in a while but Molly's not so easy to prise out her shell. All she can guess is this: they've made different choices to find themselves here or had them made for them though Sadie stayed. Still here after they left the mountains and Valentine, moved on from Clemens Point to Shady Belle. Molly doesn't do camp work though Sadie doubts that the highborn Miss O'Shea would know where to start and that if there was a time she might've asked, that time has long since passed. Sadie knew parts of this life – the hardship of it certainly and intimately – years before she married Jake and settled in Ambarino with him. Neither one of them went to the marriage with illusions or pretensions. The Van der Linde gang was simply a matter of learning the way they liked things done before getting herself trousers in Rhodes; Sadie likes to think of it as throwing her hat into the ring, so to speak, putting herself into the rotation for guarding the camp with Karen for the women and the hunting rota too so Pearson's got one less thing to pitch a longwinded, red-faced fit about. So Sadie knows how to get by and get on, ain't shy about making her opinions known. Molly isn't either but she gets the brush off from all that Sadie's seen and heard.  
  
And she's seen plenty.  
  
Maybe it was easy to be kind to the grieving woman who had a sharp tongue. To a stranger. Being the girl in Dutch's bed? Bound to come with terms and conditions only Susan Grimshaw could speak on and likely won't. Ain't like Sadie's invited to the mending circle gossip by the wagon but it's hard to miss it. Hard not to be drawn in when she's feeding the chickens or fetching eggs, fetching water or hefting food or whatever job needs doing because Lord knows they've plenty idle hands about the place.   
  
Micah Bell sew his own belt loops? Hell'd freeze over faster. Same with Bill Williamson lending a hand to maintain the wagons unless Hosea's there to threaten him.  
  
Sadie watches her in Clemens Point, sat alone by the shore and wonders if she's trying to see some way clear back to Ireland. She doesn't ask. Doesn't say much but gives her a friendly nod when she passes, offers a smoke when she's got one; Sadie knows what it's like to lie there alone night after night and if Molly thinks she's doing otherwise then she's fooling herself.  
  
(Then it all goes to hell. Sean's dead. Jack's gone. Fields and old homes are set alight, the law is after them _again_ and they're running again without admitting it. Molly bites her lip and Sadie swallows down her regrets as she rides out alongside the wagons.)  
  


* * *

  
  
Life settles at Shady Belle in time. The rifles are set by the gazebo, they tidy the place out as best they can under Susan's guidance – few are spared when it comes to scrubbing the floors down until their hands end up raw and blistered those earliest of days - and with Jack back they've something present to worry about that's not variations of the law after their hides. Turns out there's nothing like one small boy and his dog for finding trouble. For a while Sadie thinks, foolishly because Arthur laughs so hard he damn near hacks up a lung when she tells him, things'll settle since they're indoors for the most part, they're pretty damn well hidden and Dutch is happily wrapped up in his planning. Always his planning. Watching out on the camp from his balcony or inviting them close to narrate like some terrible old father out of novels Sadie half-remembers.  
  
 _"You got no idea," is what Arthur tells her when he gets his breath back, tears in the crow's feet by the corners of his eyes. "Just you wait Mrs Adler."_  
  
Doesn't take long: there's a hollering match upstairs that goes on from just past dinner into the small hours when the watches switch over, Dutch's voice cracking, Molly's voice rising, all banging doors and furious feet storming down the stairs and outside past where Sadie was thinking of turning in.   
  
It's late, late enough the owls have given up on hunting and the crickets have stop their chirping, and cold as Sadie's bed may be she's had little for company but increasingly bitter coffee and whickering horses on her watch. But then she thinks about Molly sat all alone at Clemens Point. The set of her mouth riding out gripping the side of the wagon. Everyone else is long gone by now and it's not like anyone'd come looking for Molly O'Shea – plenty of unkind things are said and most of them are from Dutch after all so who'd go against his opinion? – so Sadie goes, makes enough noise not to startle her.  
  
Then remembers she's not got a damn clue what to say in the first place as she sets the rifle down (Javier'll be up soon) and settles on a stump where the damp soaks through the seat of her pants in moments. But she's been out for hours now and mists off the swamps chill the air before they heat up, ever-present, never burning off.   
  
"You—" Sadie tries and Molly turns fast, braid whipping about her shoulders.  
  
"I'm _fine_." She forces the words out, eyes red, her voice thick and choked and Sadie swallows her sigh, tossing the last of her coffee away from both of them.  
  
"All right, all right," Sadie holds out a hand and closes her eyes a second. Tries to ignore that it's like she's just had dust thrown right in her face as she rubs a hand down her face as Molly heaves in a deep shuddering breath and wonders if she'd maybe want some of the peace Sadie had once.   
  
"I just wish he'd _listen_ to me once in a while." Molly could say it thirty seconds or thirty minutes later, Sadie can't tell how long passes between that blink and the haze blots out any attempt at guessing from squinting for a sunrise through the swamp. "I know Dutch, he's not himself and us being here—bogged down in this _swamp_ , it's not helping. None of being down here is."  
  
Tents give an illusion of privacy. Sadie's shut her ears to many a raised voice at all hours, now here she is, wading in without a lantern with snakes and gators and vines fit to drag her down. "Lot of tempers fraying down here, hell, lot seems to be going wrong from where I'm sitting but I've not been around long, maybe it's just been a bad time."  
  
"No." Molly's voice is flat and low, the fight washed out a moment but there's another deep shuddering breath that might threaten more sobs. "Everything's wrong with me and him, he's cold now. He loves me. I know it."  
  
Sadie's not walking into that one: Molly's got a hundred mile stare and she's not asking the question of Sadie, she knows she's not and she sits a little closer, might've reached out if she were Abigail, Tilly or Mary-Beth the way they did with her but some days she's seen Molly coiled up tighter than a rattlesnake and Sadie'd snap right back at her. So they sit together, an offer of a smoke rebuffed, a whole lot of shuddering breathing and the earliest of risers beginning to clatter out of a creaking ramshackle ruin.   
  
(Sadie wishes she had a coat, Molly must be mighty cold storming out in her nightgown and a shawl she's using the corners of for a handkerchief.)  
  
"You ever get outta camp?" Sadie asks, pretending she doesn't see Molly putting herself together again. Sadie wanted that. When the tears wouldn't stop and God they all meant well but it was suffocating, trapped inside with them about her when they seemed to think grief was a wound to be staunched by many hands and good intentions.  
  
Molly sniffs followed by the snap of her little mirror. "No?"  
  
"Never? All this country we ride through and you just. Stay here with Swanson and Pearson for company? With _Uncle_?" Even the girls went into town to do what the men couldn't or wouldn't but given that Karen socked Molly in the jaw and Dutch's _loitering_ around Mary-Beth, Sadie's not about to go bringing those names up. No sense throwing more fuel on the fire.  
  
That at least prompts a watery laugh. "I get out now and then but there's not much for me in some places – Valentine and Rhodes? They're a far cry from Blackwater and even then…well, there's no going back there for any of us now. Why, you suggesting something Mrs Adler?"  
  
"As a matter of fact I am." Or she will be because it's that place between the middle of the night and the morning where things seem like a damn good idea and all she knows is that both of them need out of this place for a few days or it'll go south fast. "I got some pelts need deliverin' to the trapper in Saint Denis; seems more your place than anywhere else I've seen."  
  
"But Dutch—"  
  
"Dutch nothing." Sadie turns, catching Molly in the process of dabbing her face with her a heavier shawl than the usual white-with-flowers number. She's blotchy beneath the freckles, the last of her makeup from the night before streaked despite the repair efforts; Molly O'Shea has a reputation to uphold don't she, can't go back inside in a state, can't let any of them see how deep the fight might've cut. "Arthur goes riding off doing Lord knows what and sure, might draw a little attention myself but I reckon no one here'll complain when we come back with money for the box. 'sides, you'll blend in there. Fancy crowd in Saint Denis from what they all said on the way back, fancier than any place _I've_ seen."  
  
"I don't—" Molly sniffs again, getting to her feet. Sadie'd offer her a hand but that might be crossing a line. Sometimes all you have is your pride. "I'm not like the rest of the girls here. I don't get up to what they do."  
  
"I know," Sadie replies easily enough. "But I tried thanking the owner of the general store in Rhodes, giving him a tip and well you can ask Arthur how that went – he'll do it justice."  
  
Molly takes a breath and looks down at Sadie, skirts clutched in her hands, the knuckles white. "When you thinking of going?"  
  
"Next couple of days – I need to check in with Dutch and Hosea, see if Arthur's riding off too." Sadie rises too, one of her knees popping – it's been a damn long night – and stretches, arms high above her head. "Think it over."  
  
"I will." Molly turns to go, makes it about a half dozen steps before she looks over her shoulder. "Goodnight Mrs Adler. Thank you."  
  
"Goodnight Miss O'Shea."  
  
The solitary rooster crows by the time Molly makes it to the door and Sadie drags herself to bed.  
  


* * *

  
  
Hosea's the one who actually agrees to the trip since Dutch does his usual routine of waving Sadie off with half an ear and a laugh; there are days Sadie longs to slap him clean across the face but she's got a fair idea of how it'd go down so she thanks Hosea who reminds her more of folk she grew up around. Molly goes back and forth on it until a long night where Dutch joins one group by the fire to swap stories, everyone else spread around to sing bawdy songs to Uncle's banjo or to play cards.  
  
"You're heading out tomorrow Mrs Adler?" Molly asks her with a bottle clenched in her fist tight enough it might shatter.  
  
"After breakfast – packing for an overnight just to be on the safe side."  
  
(Arthur's told her stories about strange folk in the bayou, bodies hanging, weeping by lanterns – Sadie's having no part in _that_ thank you very much.)  
  
"In the morning then."  
  
Morning comes and Molly's getting them some supplies from Pearson after Charles said to make sure to get better than salted offal and she's all charm, some honest to God excitement about her as Pearson flushes red under the force of whatever flattery is in play.   
  
"You sure 'bout this?" Arthur's voice draws Sadie back into the present as she makes sure Bob's saddled good and proper, all the smaller pelts split between his saddlebags and her own pack. "Sadie Adler and Molly O'Shea in Saint Denis."  
  
Arthur drags Saint Denis out into three words as Sadie rolls her eyes, snorts, and gives him a shove that has him staggering back a ways, hands up. "What, think I'll shoot up the place?"  
  
"Remember that supply run?"  
  
"That was the Lemoyne Raiders, not me!"  
  
"Fine, fine. Just bring back this horse here in one piece – those brothers out by the last camp'll buy her and we've plenty here."   
  
"She's a pretty thing." Sadie strokes her neck as Arthur finishes saddling her up (by rights it ought to be Kieran but he still skirts Sadie if they're alone and she does likewise, she can't blame him anymore than she can forgive the ties) with a saddle Sadie's seen in wagons but not in use. They've lost people before they made it to Colter and she came into their lives, she knows that. "Stolen?"  
  
"Probably not the first. I know Tilly don't work much with the horses but I got it chasing down Anthony Foreman, might be a reminder she could do without."  
  
Sadie nods and claps his arm instead of teasing, adjusting the wolf pelts they tossed over Bob's back when Arthur goes red. He gets like that but he's been kind to her same as he is with most everyone deserving – and those who aren't – in his own clumsy way. He leaves her with a few pelts of his own on the back of the Appaloosa and makes her promise to ride safe and stay out of trouble before he heads back to camp proper, him, Charles and John all with heads bent together over something as soon as he takes a seat but then there's Molly in her checked walking skirt, white shirt and shawl, hair pinned up and another satchel.  
  
"This us then?"  
  
"This is us," Sadie confirms and they split the supplies from Pearson between both horses to be safe. "Arthur says you can take the Appaloosa there, got it chasing down that Foreman who took Tilly."  
  
"All right." Molly looks like she might say something more but then thinks better of it, a hand on the horse – leopard spotted beauty, Arthur'll fetch a good price for her even lacking papers.   
  
Sadie extends a hand when she's about halfway to mounting Bob, hesitates. "You need any help?"  
  
"No I'm fine, been a while but," Molly gathers her skirts as she speaks and mounts up, a little stiff but more graceful than Sadie was expecting. "I still remember how it works."  
  
"I'd take a wagon but we're s'posed to be _lying low_." Sadie swings up and into the saddle herself, leans as close as she can and snorts for good measure.  
  
"I can ride." Molly sounds offended, that flush high in her cheeks and the grip she's got on the reins has the Appaloosa tossing her head.  
  
"Never said you couldn't." A nudge with her thighs and Bob's striding forward, Sadie patting him on his neck, big and blood-warm under her palm and he whickers softly as they pass beneath the trees side-by-side. "Might be more comfortable is all – and you let me worry 'bout any Lemoyne Raiders."  
  
Sadie doesn't look behind her to make sure Arthur's out of earshot. Doesn't need any helpful quips or suggestions from him today no thank you.  
  
"I'm more worried about the alligators Mrs Adler truth be told. The noises they make coming up out the water and those eyes—got a leer about them. Unnatural, no creature should look like that." Molly's curls bounce when she shakes her head, a little less put together than Sadie'd expect for her but it's early, she's never had time for whatever was considered the height of fashion, maybe she didn't have long enough for it this morning or the ride might destroy it and waste the effort.  
  
Sadie clucks her tongue; living inside tucked out of the way in Shady Belle make a change from what the gang's used to what with a roof (full of holes, near collapsing with the weight of damp and rot and ill-repair), walls (much the same with plants growing clean through in places) and the warped floor but there's little to recommend this newest spot; John and Arthur fresh from clearing bodies when they rattled their way down the road, Swanson bending the ear of anyone who'll listen about the ghost he sees even when he's not lost to the bottle, the heat and humidity fit to smother and the goddamn mosquitoes. Not that Sadie complains. Much. But there are days where she longs for the mountain air to steal her breath away, to be up in the Grizzlies, to sink into snowdrifts past her knee just getting to and from the barn to check on the horses.  
  
(She's forgiven Arthur for selling the one he borrowed. Too gentle a soul for this life but he might've asked. She might not've answered given her state up in Colter and Horseshoe Overlook but she'd have appreciated the consideration.)  
  
What she does say once they're well clear of camp is that the alligator meat ain't half bad and not even Pearson can ruin it despite making a real attempt at doing just that.  
  
"Me mammy'd weep if she had to stomach what he serves. That or pitch a fit over it."  
  
Sadie laughs and it's probably the horses that startle the songbirds out of the tree but hell, it could be her as she steers her horse back on the road again. "Yeah, I reckon mine could outcook him too for all my complaints when I was younger."  
  
"Oh mine…I don't know if she could cook any better. She ended up with enough practice by the time I left with Dutch but," Molly's voice is cut off as a fancy little wagon rattles past them without a word, a great cloud of dust because this is a parched land they're riding through now – it took days for the smoke to clear from the Braithwaite Manor once that business was said and done. "Like I was saying, it wouldn't have stopped her from complaining."  
  
"Your mother didn't cook?"  
  
Molly rides up alongside her, looking like she belongs in that saddle in a way Sadie wouldn't have believed when she woke this morning to make the final preparations with Arthur ribbing her all the while, some part of her mighty ashamed; wasn't so long ago that she was trying to prove herself and still is, on the fringes just how Sadie is with all the other women in the camp.  
  
"No one's told you all about me?"  
  
"No? Been regaled about all manner of other things but they ain't gossiped about you to me behind your back Miss O'Shea."  
  
"Oh." That seems to take Molly aback more than a little after Clemens Point and everything that escalated and escalated during their stay and shows no sign of improving now for all the breathing space and respite they seem to have bought themselves. "My family's wealthy. _Was_ wealthy. Not anymore if they're still alive, not like I can go back to check and—well it doesn't matter."   
  
Sadie can't tell if she imagines the click of Molly's jaw under the drum of hoof beats. She looks at her out the corner of her eye, the way she holds herself in the saddle, the position of her elbows and thinks _oh_ herself; there never was a time for Molly to ask and with things how they are (Abigail put it a fine way as kindly as anyone could and yet—and _yet_ ) Molly never can because she'll be one of them won't she, and any lesson would be made as intolerable and worse than humbling as possible, Sadie'd put money on that.  
  
"I'm sorry," Molly says when they've ridden near to one of the bridges. "Didn't mean to make it awkward."  
  
"It's all right, didn't know what to say to that – I grew up hunting and riding horses, didn't have much use for talking too much compared to most of y'all." She scans the horizon to be safe and leads on when there's no sign of an ambush, just the odd grunting bellows of the alligators in the water that spook both horses. "You ain't done a thing to me Miss O'Shea."  
  
"Maybe you'd be miss calling me Molly."  
  
"Only if you call me Sadie."  
  
It gets the first real smile – no tightness, no hiding it behind a fan, no trying to disguise it one way or the other – by the time they're across safely. Just a ride of bullfrogs singing and hopping underfoot, Molly pointing delightedly at the egrets and cranes that fly above them as they go; maybe she had hats with feather plumes in them, wasn't much call for that kind of fashion and maybe they like different things in Ireland or maybe she just wants to be as free as they are, even for a moment.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dutch's opinion of Saint Denis had come at length after the first venture there and back and given Jack's kidnapping so hot on the heels of the Pinkertons, the mess of the Grays and the Braithwaites, and Sean's death maybe some of it's fair; Sadie's never seen factories in the flesh before with the great gouts of smoke high in the air leaving a constant haze and it stops her in her tracks.  
  
"Reminds me of London," is all Molly says as she urges her horse forward more carefully into the bustle until she realises Sadie's not following. "You coming?"  
  
"You've been to London?" Her left foot slips out her stirrup and she's having more trouble than she should fixing that.   
  
"I was a young lass; don't remember all that much now but this brings it back." Molly shakes her hair back out of her face and adjusts her shawl with the hand not on the reins. "My father had business that saw him in London – might've been the horses or something to do with land, he kept me out of most of it until he wanted to bend your ear about how it wasn't his fault at the end." There's that genuine smile again and no matter what comes, Sadie swears she won't regret the trip for all she can't quite wrap her head round what Molly's telling her though it's the longest they've ever spoken and that's as much on her as it is on Molly. "Doubt I was much older than Jack during the first trip we took."  
  
"Hang on, hang on," Sadie reaches out to touch the Appaloosa on the neck to halt them both. "You're tellin' me you went to London more than once?"  
  
"Aye. A couple of times. We—we had money back then. It wasn't strange to go making journeys like that, before my father realised what a bad investment he'd made coming here he thought he'd be going back and forth between America and Ireland to rebuild his fortunes."  
  
"Do they know that?"  
  
"Sean do- did. Little shite." Something almost fond settles in and well, Sadie's not going to go poking into anything Irish unless it's sticking a knife into an O'Driscoll. "Dutch and probably Hosea, few years ago there wasn't a thought they didn't share."  
  
Sadie wants to ask, because looking at Molly she thinks they must be about the same age give or take which puts them just a few years older than 'the girls' as Grimshaw terms Abigail, Tilly, Mary-Beth and Karen, and a good decade younger than Grimshaw herself, about how her and Dutch really ended up together but that'd be asking for trouble. Because Sadie knows why she chose Jake and Jake chose her: as much for practicality as it was for love, two people accustomed to the harsh realities of living where they did and what it took not just to make a life but to survive, where you had to pull your weight so the other half didn't get dragged down alongside you just making up the slack. Molly has her nose in a book – plenty of the camp do, they've got at least one whole crate devoted to them that they pack up and lug from place to place, trading and quoting and discussing when there's time to catch a break – more often than not and Sadie can guess her tastes; gentleman thieves, highway men, outlaws. Someone to sweep her away from her life. To rescue her. To steal her away to something exciting. No more shoes worn down at the heels, riches spilling out her pockets.  
  
No book Sadie's read tell you about how the horses need mucked out, that the pans need scouring every day, that any water you want you'll be hauling yourself, and that the thief gets old and grows a temper that blows hot and cold.  
  
"Anything you want to do or see while we're here?" Sadie asks instead. "I asked Arthur since he's been here before and there's a saloon where there won't be bar fights, theatre, parks, a cathedral but plenty of the place is about as rundown as anywhere else y'all've been."  
  
"A real theatre? Not just a tent in a field?"  
  
"An honest to god theatre. Don't know if Arthur was lying about what he saw there."  
  
"It's Arthur, he's a funny way about him – what did he say?"  
  
"Saw a lady dancing with fire?"  
  
Molly laughs, tries to stifle it, and fails miserably. Sadie realises she's the sort of pale to show a blush all the way down her throat and doesn't know why she notices or what she's supposed to do with that. "Oh we need to go to theatre, can't have you missing out on seeing ladies spinning fire or doing the can-can flashing their knickers."  
  
" _Excuse me_?"  
  
"Oh Sadie, you've got no idea, c'mon, where's this trapper of yours?"  
  


* * *

  
  
Most of the time Sadie doesn't do all that much with her pelts outside camp; there's always a holster in need of mending or a stirrup, a table that might want a fresh cover for it and if Arthur says he's heading out then he's usually amenable to taking what's not needed and bring back the profits. Sadie grew up knowing how to use every part of a kill and suspects that only Charles has any idea how to be as resourceful by necessity because there's still so much more waste than her parents or even her and Jake would ever stomach. But Sadie's not in a cabin with just her, a husband, and their own few beasts to worry about. She needs her own money and Dutch brushing off her requests only has her tightening her jaw – course she'll be doing her own thing and proving herself, she's not some silly thing around to amuse him with delusions about riding with the men. Saint Denis has a real trapper same as you'd find out in the wilderness, decent pay for good pelts and according to Arthur he didn't give him any funny looks or odd remarks (near a fence too and well Sadie might need to know that for the future, not today but who can say what she'll need for a future visit?) and with a healthy sum in her pockets, Bob unburdened? He wasn't wrong.   
  
She'll pick him up some extra pencils for all that journaling he does before they head back, maybe see if anywhere sells books to add to the battered collection in the camp crate.  
  
So maybe Sadie's got a swing in her step coming back to Molly ready to announce they can head off in search of other adventures (the theatre _does_ intrigue her after Molly refused to say more even after pestering all the way here) now business is taken care of but the sight that greets her stops her in her tracks. Molly's waiting by the horses like she said she would with a red and white striped paper bag of what can only be peppermints that she takes turns feeding to both horses with an unhurried air, petting their noses when they try to steal the bag from them. Sadie could have told that Bob's got no manners but then she didn't think she'd have to outside of stabling them for the night. Sadie hangs back to watch and she can't rightly say why but maybe it's something about the relaxed way Molly has about her that she doesn't at any camp, her shoulders back instead of drawn together, somehow lighter on her feet as she stretches up to rub her borrowed mount between the ears. Eventually she has to interrupt lest she turn into some sort of leering pervert outside the cathouse or Dutch whenever Mary-Beth's just trying to read a damn book in the shade of a wagon in the afternoon sun.  
  
"You've made his day." Sadie pitches her voice just above the crowd, Bob swinging his head in her direction at the sound.  
  
"Ah I've seen what they get in camp all day every day, miserable sort of life if you ask me."  
  
"Pearson don't feed 'em, they've got that to be thankful for but…" She casts an eye around – no green accents on shirts and jackets with a general sour disposition, a din in the air in more languages than she can understand as is but why borrow trouble when they've enough as is? Molly seems to take her meaning and laughs, tucking the mints back into her saddlebag as they mount up again.  
  
"Bit of a funny boy that one, surprised he's made it this long."  
  
"You and me both – I can't believe Arthur went fishing with him. Javier you can understand but I never saw that one coming."  
  
"No one much liked looking after any horse but their own, helps having another hand who does it – we lost three before you and him came along so it was that or forcing a layabout into hefting straw."  
  
Somehow Sadie doubts Molly was any closer to the dead than she is to the living but she holds her tongue; it won't do any good to speak of it and this is the most she's ever spoken to Molly anyway. More and more these days Karen's lost in the bottle – folk watch but if Swanson's how he is and they've done nothing then she imagines it'll be more of the same. It's sad is what it is, and selfishly Sadie hopes she doesn't have to see her go so soon after Sean because there surely can't be much more loss shouldered by one group of people. The way they've been swinging from low to high to high to low over the past weeks makes her head spin and she's still an outsider. Sean was a mouthy little shit but the camp is emptier without him for all that he was a layabout (more willing to get up off his backside than Bill or Micah though, that's for sure).  
  
Won't stop her from getting nervous when Karen's on guard duty with a weapon and whisky on her breath. A long night alone and drinking the day and her grief away are a bad combination.  
  
"So this anything like London?"  
  
"Not by a long shot – London was dirtier and busier, couldn't see through the smog. I remember—" Molly's voice is so tight Sadie thinks she's being throttled for a long minute and there's the unmistakable sound of her fan unfurling. "I remember my father. _Just you keep a tight hold of my hand now Molly. Don't go getting lost on me you hear?_ It's been years and I still remember that."  
  
"Sounds like something I've heard Abigail saying to Jack about running off, especially now on account the damn bayou." Sadie's own memories are how to aim, setting traps and skinning. Less delicate recollections but her father had his big hands over hers too, didn't he? "We should get these two into the stables and make sure we've a room at the saloon – I'm going to that show Molly O'Shea, you've as good as promised it's a night I won't forget."  
  
"So long as you promise you're not easily scandalised Sadie Adler."  
  
Try as she might (and if pressed she'd admit she doesn't try very hard) Sadie laughs hard enough to turn the heads of half the people on the street.  
  


* * *

  
  
They stable the horses for the night – and arrange for some fresh provisions for both of them for the ride back – and Sadie books them a shared room in the Bastille saloon while Molly gets the tickets for an evening show. It gives them the best part of the afternoon to spend in Saint Denis where there's the park, all manner of strange little stores and a tailor so fine that Molly whirls in and out with a tight-lipped expression that Sadie doesn't question. Might've before but she won't now. Dutch has no plans for heading back to the mountains so she won't need to have her own moment.  
  
The show is everything and more though, Sadie maybe not dressed right but Molly got them good seats and they end up leaning into each other, laughing and cheering and hollering with all the rest; only natural then to end up arm in arm for the walk back to home for the night what with Saint Denis getting dark too even when it's lit up brighter than anything Sadie's ever seen in her life.   
  
Molly doesn't say a word when Sadie stops in the street and peers up, up, up 'til her neck hurts at all the lights, just smiles until Sadie's looked her fill.  
  
The Bastille saloon by night is as pleasant an experience as anyone could dream up and Sadie's mighty undressed compared to the other ladies who all wear such pale pastels and lace and—well it's all fabric that Sadie wouldn't have had need for in her life before either so she can't recall the names but Molly glances about as they take their seats (prime rib – on Sadie – and whiskys – Molly's insistence) and leans in across the table once they've been served.  
  
"Should've worn my green dress here maybe."  
  
"You look fine," Sadie says which isn't what she should say because that's not how you compliment a lady and it's not how you'd compliment highborn proper ladies like Molly O'Shea who read poetry. It'd be easier if she could bring herself to remember the things Jake said but that's unfair and—well it's a hornets' nest she won't go disturbing here. "Not fine, you look—"  
  
Molly laughs, glass raised halfway to her mouth and her lips are an even deeper red in this light. "Never thought I'd find someone worse than Arthur when it comes to finding the right words to say to a lady."  
  
"Hey, I bought us both dinner!"  
  
"I'm only teasing," Molly says and she knocks Sadie's ankle with a foot under the table that almost has Sadie banging her knee against the table but she catches herself in time.  
  
It's sad, is what it is, that this Molly O'Shea ain't around more. Maybe she was. Maybe this is the girl that at least some of the camp knew once, unsuited for the hardscrabble sort of life that makes demands of a person and everyone else. Maybe Dutch took Molly out before. Played at being a cultured man or maybe he was because he's played his phonograph so that there's other music for dancing, he'll read aloud to debate whoever happens past him (willing or unwilling, Sadie's always given him a wide berth when she spies Dutch with a book in hand) and something about his tent puts her in mind of old hunters. Mounds of pelts and men stood atop piles of skulls. Dashing enough with bandana and pistols and astride a horse to not be whatever sort of man rich Irish girls marry when their daddies make the introductions.  
  
So she assumes. Sadie doesn't know for sure how it works for the rich daughters here let alone other countries.  
  
Here there's real wallpaper all bright and shining. Warm lighting that has Molly's hair glowing copper. Up the first flight of stairs on the landing there's a real piano player without a single person singing along, that sort of quiet music to make folk relax comfortably as men in their neat pressed suits head upstairs to play cards. Sadie couldn't get used to this for long but for a night or two she can indulge herself without any trouble.  
  
"Don't know about you but I'm getting a bath," Sadie announces when she's done, wiping her mouth with a napkin.  
  
Molly closes her eyes just for a moment letting out a soft noise Sadie doubts she realises she can hear too. "A bath sounds wonderful. Actual hot water and a closed door."  
  
"Two baths it is."  
  
"What're we again if anyone asks?"  
  
"In-laws catching up while our men conduct business." Nice simple lie couched in the truth – maybe a little too close to the truth but it was the first thing that sprang to mind when she wondered at why they'd share without drawing attention.  
  
Sadie's shared tents and bedrolls since joining the Van der Linde gang in all sorts of states, mostly with the other younger women, before John and Abigail were patching things up because Abigail's kindness never pushed too far. She checked in, she didn't smother, put something in her hands to keep her busy when she saw she needed it and Sadie's never quite been sure how to thank her for it, she'll work that out one day. Sharing a real bed'll be a first since Jake but she's not about to make it strange and Saint Denis is expensive after all, she wants enough to stash away when she's put her cash in the camp funds.  
  
"You go first," Molly says, "I want to sit and listen a little longer."  
  
"All right, don't be too long. We're the room right at the end of the hall."  
  


* * *

  
  
Sadie's out on the balcony smoking when Molly announces she's back, her shawl knotted loosely about her shoulders and the ends of her hair damp and curling from the bath. Sadie had examined everything but the thought of washing her hair here amongst strangers wasn't a thought she relished and Molly must've thought the same; Sadie counts herself lucky her braid is long enough she can wrap it up and pin it clear out the way when she needs to. There's a scrape of the screen across the floor and she heads back in, stubbing the cigarette out on an empty glass someone else left. There's no one else at any of the tables or chairs but the park is lit up and she spies courting couples (or not, could be working girls for all Sadie knows) and horses prancing brightly down the streets, most of them pulling a buggy.  
  
Downstairs there's singing but even this late it's not gone rowdy yet.   
  
The little drapes give them some privacy, the lamps are low and when Sadie went for her bath someone came and lit the fire for them (Sadie had to fix it, would've burnt out before the night was through the way they'd done it but she can't fault someone rushed off their feet). The bed is softer than any bed Sadie's known in her whole life even if the linens have been laundered enough times to see them faded, loose threads for her to pick at while she waits for Molly to finish up, her clothes joining Sadie's hanging over the screen. It shouldn't—well it does something, the sight of that. Moves her in some way she hasn't words for. Like she might want time to freeze for a spell longer but she's no right and she doesn't know what she'd do except wish she could draw the way she catches Arthur or take a photograph if Molly were willing. (And suspects she'd prefer one of Molly unsuspecting but that just seems wrong, Sadie knows she'd hate it herself.)  
  
Somehow when Molly steps out from behind the screen, unpinning her hair and shaking it loose, Sadie's not surprised at the nightgown being just as fine as all the rest she wears: lace and ribbon details at the shoulders and best, gathered in just a little at the waist and more around the hemline ruffles. Sadie raises an eyebrow but says nothing, untying her braid and brushing her fingers through it as she sits at the end of her bed in much more plain linen she's taken in and let out as needed when she picked it up, just a little bit of stitching by the neckline that's never gone anywhere. Something to busy her hands weeks ago when she wanted to be anywhere else but where she was.  
  
"You ready to turn in?" Molly asks over a rustle of blankets being pulled back and Sadie nods, rising to check the main door (locked) and the balcony (also locked), before setting her pistol on the bedside table in easy reach with all but the lamp on Molly's side off. "This has been—"  
  
Molly swallows, closes her eyes and settles as Sadie slides into bed next to her. She doesn't jump when Molly takes her hand but it's a near thing.  
  
"Sorry let me try again – thank you. I needed this. I didn't realise, it's just been so long since I've been out and about, able to talk to anyone."  
  
"Don't mention, thought some time away might clear your head." She doesn't say that Dutch waved most of it away in a plume of cigar smoke. Molly knows his moods, it's up to her what she does with Sadie's words. "I don't know how it's been for you but I know some of how it is. To just—" It's Sadie's turn to try to find her words again.  
  
"It's the loneliness. All those people day and night. Never alone but the loneliness creeps in and shadows you by the fire every night, whispers in your ear last thing when you fall asleep and first thing when you wake."  
  
What's there to say to that? Not a damn thing but to find Molly's hand in the dark and link their fingers, roll onto her side to mirror Molly who watches her steadily, smiling but not. Sadie can't look away and so she watches her own hand reach out to brush those red curls out of Molly's face, cupping her jaw, thumb on Molly's chin.  
  
"He doesn't exist here and now." It's a command or promise when Molly whispers it, as if she's afraid saying it at all might shatter something or summon him and Sadie nods, rubs a small circle on Molly's chin beneath that full lip; her widowhood is still fresh enough that she shouldn't but Lord—  
  
She's lonely. There's a great screaming chasm in her that snarls something fierce, a snared wolf that'd soon as tear a leg off and snap at helping hands than have anything else but she wants to know. Molly must too.  
  
She can't say who leans in first only that Molly is warmer and softer than what she's used to (it was only Jake in her bed before, a few stolen moments with farmhands that never went far because Sadie was a good girl who had chores to do and little free time to speak of) but probably not as soft and fine a lady as she was years ago. But if Molly's banished Dutch then Sadie will send her ghost from the room too as she lets go of Molly's hand to free it so she can slide it up over Molly's side ( _a cotton nightgown_ , she thinks _of course_ ) as slow as she would a spooked horse. Harder still to say who closes the distance only that Molly tastes of whisky and she's the one who seizes the chance to take control of the kiss when she nips at Sadie's lower lip to startle a gasp from her, Molly's hand clutching the front of Sadie's nightgown.  
  
Her thumb brushes a nipple through thin fabric and Sadie's breath catches in her throat as Molly smiles up at her, urging Sadie onto her back and she goes willingly, allowing Molly to catch her hands and hold them above her head – she can break free easy enough if she wants, Molly O'Shea's not going to pin her down if Sadie doesn't want to be there and they both know it – but she leans down to kiss her again, stretched out atop her, warm and fresh from the bath and it shouldn't be the most natural thing for her thighs to part so one of Molly's can settle between but she arches her hips up, fingers curling uselessly, heels digging into the bed.  
  
"Can I undress you Sadie?" Molly asks quietly, letting go of her lips to run her fingers through her hair, nails scratching at her scalp and a kiss behind her right ear that has Sadie's toes curling.  
  
"Seems fair if I can undress you too." Her hands have already found Molly's thighs and begun sliding the nightgown up as soon as Molly nods. Molly shivers at the slow progress and she's pale, slender but soft – no hard chores about the camp scrubbing or hauling and a soft life before all that so she's not muscled the way Sadie is herself – and freckled across where the necklines of her dresses sit when she lets go of Sadie to allow the nightgown lifted up over her head. "Let me just—" Sadie has to arch up under Molly and it has her bare thigh pressing against where Molly is bare now, warm and damp and she has to bite down on her lip to stifle the cry as Molly gets Sadie just as naked.  
  
Molly runs her fingers down Sadie's ribs until she tries to catch them but Molly's faster, trailing them back up and leaving red lines and heat as she cups Sadie's breasts, her nipples hardening at the touch and Sadie settles her hands on Molly's hips that're moving without her seemingly being aware of it, a gentle roll against Sadie's thigh as she leans down to suck at a nipple, following it with a scrape of teeth that has Sadie moaning.  
  
"You keep that up and—"  
  
"S'not like you're a man Mrs Adler," Molly interrupts with a wicked grin and Sadie laughs, reaching out to pull her into another kiss, slower than before, her heart racing and she fancies she can feel Molly's too where they're pressed so close to one another.   
  
"Exactly," Sadie tells her. "So lie back for me and _tell me_ if you want me to stop, all right?"  
  
"All right."  
  
She kisses Molly on the neck – resists the urge to nip and leave a mark above her fluttering pulse but time and makeup won't be on their side and they can't go inviting questions – and down the throat, between her breasts where she repays the attention given to her and continues down with a smile when Molly plants her feet flat on the bed with little urging, just a tap on one knee when Sadie kisses where hip meets thigh. She slides a hand under Molly's back, the other on her thigh and parts her cunt with her tongue as Molly gasps above her (muffled, there's fabric rustling and the noise downstairs will only cover so much ruckus in here) and digs her heels deeper into the mattress. Easy to think about what she likes (what she liked) and to tease her clit, slow, careful, quiet bitten-off sounds caught in Molly's throat until a hand reaches out to catch in Molly's hair as she arches into her. Not holding her or demanding, just guiding.  
  
"Please," Molly manages after a shuddering. "More."  
  
Who would Sadie be to deny her, salt-sweet on her tongue as she listens to the aborted noises Molly's making, the thigh beneath her hand trembling as she keeps going; her cramping hand doesn't matter, Shady Belle might as well be on another continent, the Van der Linde gang has no hold on them – all there is is this bed with Molly crying out softly and flushed from the neck all the way down her chest until she comes in a rush, one of her feet sliding out from under her, thighs shaking, a warm wet rush against Sadie's face and she's beautiful then and beautiful after when pulls away and kisses her before Sadie gets the chance to clean up, relaxed in a way Sadie knows she's unlikely to see again.  
  
"Jesus." It's a long time before Molly's able to say a damn thing and she laughs, kissing Sadie again. "That was—what do you—can I?"  
  
"Ssh," Sadie smiles and takes one of Molly's hands – she's got soft hands, softer than Sadie's have ever been in her whole life – and guides it between her leg where her whole body is thrumming and Molly's smiling at her in a way that leaves her feeling raw. "Like this, just—yeah, like that."  
  
Three fingers on Sadie's clit, slow circles that she directs with her hand still on Molly's wrist while she gets her breath back, until she knows she's not going to come right away. She closes her eyes when Molly fucks her with one finger, the pressure of her thumb insistent on her clit – "two, give me two" – and Molly does as she asks with a nip to the hollow of her throat that Sadie's shirt'll cover and that's how she comes, her cry caught in her throat.  
  
She's half-asleep when she hears Molly open the door a crack to air the room, in her shawl and nightgown and Sadie heats water by the fire to clean them both up and Molly outlines the bite she left with her nail, fresh and tender, a reminder for days to come.   
  
Sadie doesn't dream when she sleeps, Molly's head on her shoulder and her arm about hers.  
  


* * *

  
  
The horses are gleaming come morning when they walk down to the stables after an early breakfast with a group of urchins that shriek and yell as they run past them. _Little shites_ , Molly had called them as they'd walked arm-in-arm like it was a natural thing to do and it's not like Sadie's fooling herself; she's fresh enough a widow and Molly'll be going back to Dutch as soon as they're in Shady Belle, things'll still be as they are but they've had this.  
  
She's a little less lonely, she thinks. Not any lighter but not a damn one of them are that's for sure.  
  
"Shame to be parting with this one," Molly says once they're riding out and across the bridge, Saint Denis and her chimneys behind them as strokes the neck of her horse.  
  
"You're always welcome company Molly." Sadie keeps her eyes fixed ahead and tells herself that this is Lemoyne Raider territory still and they've Pinkertons after them too. "If you ever feel lonely."  
  
She catches Molly's smile and it's enough as they urge their horses onward and homeward bound.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [The Glass Essay](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48636/the-glass-essay) by Anne Carson
> 
> So: I spent entirely too much time on plausible timeline backstory for Molly O'Shea ending up in the US based on what little we get in the game and what was going on in Ireland at the time but there was plenty interesting going on that wasn't just the Great Famine including the Land War and Three Fs. This was also to figure out how old Molly _might_ be as well as Sadie (and from how I worked it out, about the same and older than the other ladies, younger than Grimshaw).
> 
> Also ladies nightgowns back then were honestly pretty cool but they would definitely be fancier for someone of Molly's station, you should look them up
> 
> (Also is it really infidelity if it's Dutch van der Linde and he's skeeving on Mary-Beth? No. No it is not.)


End file.
